


half and whole (meta)

by sanvitheartificer



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Meta, Unconditional Love, listen i just ramble about these two for a while. that's it, psychology i guess?, sort of pretentious although not on purpose that's just how it happened, the trauma of being treated like you're half a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29067243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanvitheartificer/pseuds/sanvitheartificer
Summary: Meta about the ways in which Stan and Ford's environment growing up mediated how they saw each other, and also how that environment was unhealthy.
Relationships: Ford Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	half and whole (meta)

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about a post-canon fic wherein Stan shows Ford he's good at physics now, and then had the additional idea "and Ford punches someone for Stan", and then I talked to a friend about it for a while and before I knew it I was psychoanalyzing their whole childhood. This ended up very long and sort of... weirdly academic, maybe? I'm not sure it's an interesting read, but I enjoyed writing it!

From the beginning of their lives, they are told that they are two sides of the same coin. Ford is “the smart one”, and Stan is “the normal one”, or the one with personality, or the tough one.

When they first get to school, this tilts in Stan's favor. Being 'normal' or able to talk to other people is really important, and people mock Ford for his hands. Plus, in kindergarten it isn't so obvious just how smart Ford is. The things Stan can do are more important. Stan is more worthy of their parents' love, more of a person, more everything. Stan is currently better at fulfilling the conditions of their society's love.

Stan loves his brother, and while he has no words for it he does not accept that he is worth more than Ford. They love each other unconditionally. Still, both of them internalize this way of thinking about themselves. One of them is always going to matter more to everyone else, except each other. Stan is the one who's good at fighting and talking to people and being normal, and he can't be smart, because that's Ford's thing.

These identities are conditional, and they are important. Because if they're not the identities other people gave them, which shackle them to their twin, who are they? Would they receive any love or attention at all?

Plus, if they reject these identities, they also reject each other. If Stan isn't “the normal one” (in comparison to Ford), then he's on his own, half a person. He _can't_ be smart on his own, and he's rejecting normality _for Ford_. If Ford isn't smart, then he's also killing any smart part of his brother, the part that secretly likes sci-fi and sometimes even snags one of their mom's romances.

Over time, the conditions change. Now, being smart is more valuable than being tough or normal. Ford is better at fulfilling the conditions of their society's love.

They react to the pressure of this differently. Ford has been the twin who was looked-down-upon, and it is a massive relief that other people appreciate him now. He is scared of losing that acknowledgment again, of only a single other person reliably caring about him. A single other person that he's been told for a long time is better than him.

Stan started with receiving conditional love/acceptance, and so he always knew that conditional love kinda sucks. It hurts to lose it, but mostly, it makes him protective of Ford, makes him want to cling harder. Stan's half a person, sure, and that's all he's got now, but at least his other half is _Ford_.

But as things flip-flop, Ford starts experiencing more conditional love/acceptance, and it... still sucks? It's better than not having it, but he still doesn't have what he actually needs (unconditional love from someone who isn't a child). Stan (looked like he) always had something Ford needed, and now that Ford has it, it isn't enough. He's angry, but there's no one to direct his anger at but Stan. And suddenly Stan is relying on him like Ford has something to spare.

Ford resents Stan for everyone believing that Stan was better than him for a long time, and he blames Stan for the world loving them conditionally, and he's secretly ashamed and scared that maybe it's true, maybe he is half a person and Stan is the better half. Did he make Stan feel like this? Plus, Stan seems to really buy into the whole idea, and that doesn't help at all. 

Ford rejects Stan because he needs to reject the idea that he's half a person. And when they both seek out confirmation that their relationship is unconditional at the same time, they accidentally prove that it's conditional after all. If Stan can't support Ford in the right ways, if he's too dumb, has too much “personality”, then Ford will reject him. If Ford isn't there for his brother's stupid dreams at all times, if he dares break away and imagine something just for himself, then Stan will destroy his dreams to keep them together. They have to submit to being part of each other to keep any kind of relationship alive. Stan's alright with that – but Ford isn't, and to Stan, that reads like not being okay with the whole person Stan is.

Ironically, neither of them break through this mindset at all over the next decade apart. Ford leans into being the smart one, and Stan leans into the normal/tough/personality one. They don't think about each other, and that's a deliberate act.

It is easy to make up a version of their twin who says the things they want, in this period. Stan imagines a twin who accepts him and likes him, who appreciates everything he did to try to protect his brother. A Ford who loves him unconditionally. Ford imagines a twin who applauds his success, who finally lets him live his own dreams and be loved without trying to force himself into it, who sees him as his own person. A Stan who loves him unconditionally.

It is easy to imagine that the science fair was just a fluke. Their brother does care, it was just heat of the moment, high emotions. This is why they go ten years without talking to each other – confirmation that their twin really just wants something from them and doesn't love them would be the most painful thing possible, much more painful than any amount of separation. Their twin was the one person who was always there for them growing up, the one person who just _liked_ them, who wasn't doing it for a reason. Taking that away is the worst imaginable thing.

But then Ford gets desperate and the Portal incident happens and it really, really sucks. Because it confirms their worst fears about each other. It confirms this idea that their brother has always thought about them as one half of himself – and the worst half, at that.

And now we're to the point that I actually wanted to talk about! Over the next thirty years, the twins finally break the idea that they're half of each other. They don't work through all their issues with each other, obviously, but out of spite and desperation, they are both forced to realize that they are actually both whole people. Over the decade apart, they could pretend it was just one moment. Their twin is still the idealized twin they have in their head, who accepted them no matter what, who was more important than anything else.

But the portal confrontation makes it really, really obvious that no, their brother's love does have limits. Mostly this is bad and they have the wrong impression, but it also forces them both to think about each other _as people_. Because real people have limits, especially children! The children they were at the time shouldn't be forced to be half of each other and like 90% of each others' self worth!

So Stan rebuilds a portal, because he's not just the normal one. He's a whole person, and he's a person who can be smart. And Ford learns to defend himself out in the multiverse, because he's a whole person who can be tough, not just the smart one. They both form relationships and goals and lifestyles that don't revolve around each other, for all that they spend thirty years trying to find each other again. And when they finally make up thirty years later, they once again love each other unconditionally, as they always did, as whole people who are half of nothing.


End file.
